


Everything was Beautiful at the Ballet

by mypetersburg



Category: Anastasia (1997), Anastasia - Flaherty/Ahrens/McNally
Genre: F/M, Gen, One-Sided Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-23
Updated: 2018-10-23
Packaged: 2019-08-06 04:50:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 794
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16381739
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mypetersburg/pseuds/mypetersburg
Summary: She sees everything she wants, so near she that can almost taste it.Quartet at the Ballet, with each verse from the respective character's point of view.





	Everything was Beautiful at the Ballet

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, guys! I've had these idea bouncing around my head for some time now, and I hope I did it justice. Enjoy!

**Everything was Beautiful at the Ballet**

I.

_My past and my future so near_.

Anya looks across the theatre, glancing into the box across from her own. The Dowager Empress sits inside it, clutching a beautifully engraved cane and staring stone-faced at the ballet unfolding on the stage. It suddenly hits Anya that she is glancing at the woman who she believes to be her grandmother. Her _Nana_. Heart suddenly racing, she wonders if the old woman will accept her. When Anya looks at the Dowager, all she sees is the smile of a patient and caring grandmother. Anya does not see the cold royal woman that the Dowager is so often described as. Anya sees the key to her past, and the doorway to her future.

She sees everything she wants, so near that she can almost taste it.

 

II.

_Holding tight as the dancers whirl._

Dmitry can hardly watch the ballet when the Grand Duchess is sitting beside him. He should be thrilled, he knows. He has done it. He has found the lost Anastasia, and he is going to get the reward money and live well for the rest of his life. He should be thrilled, but he isn’t. He knows it’s because it means he’s losing Anya, but he can’t bring himself to think that yet. So, he tells himself that it’s because the thrill of his success hasn’t yet set in. After all, Dmitry is a conman. He has to be good at lying.

Still, he reaches over and grabs Anya’s hand, lacing their fingers together. She squeezes his hand and looks over at him, smiling thankfully. His heart pounds almost painfully in his chest.

He must keep his nerve. He came to Paris to pass off Anya as the Grand Duchess, and the fact that she _is_ the true Grand Duchess is just an added bonus. He swallows around the lump in his throat and reminds himself to see this whole thing through.

 

III.

_I will never find her_.

The girl’s eyes are so _blue_. And when Marie saw her smile in the lobby, she had the same smile as her granddaughter. But _no_. No. There have been too many fakes, and Marie has gotten her hopes up too many times. The girl is probably lying. How despicable is it, for these young women to come and lie to an old, heartbroken woman’s face? Marie has sworn away dreaming and hoping for Anastasia to land in her lap. As _Swan Lake_ unfolds before her eyes, she decides to close the shutters of her heart for good. No more letters, no more fakes, no more Anastasias.

Marie will _never_ find her lost granddaughter.

 

IV.

_My heart and mind at war_.

The gun feels foreign and heavy against his hip, and he wonders how his father did it. As Gleb watches the little street sweeper Anya, he cannot bring himself to pull the gun from his pocket and pull the trigger. Even when he catches her eye and she does a double-take, mouth dropping open, it is a struggle for him to let his suit jacket fall open to reveal the pistol against his hip. He expects her to flinch. But she doesn’t. She stares him dead in the eyes, and he suddenly no longer feels like a predator watching his prey. He is the prey, and she is the predator. He cannot kill her. He is not his father’s son, and he certainly is no brave man. He is a coward who has fallen in love with a girl who thinks herself to be royalty. Revolution leaves no princesses. And love is not what a revolution is for. Still, Gleb wishes himself to be Dmitry, so that it could be him sitting beside Anya and holding her hand so tightly. But then, Gleb has never been a lucky man. So he will force himself to do this final act, to put a seal on the Romanovs and let this communistic bliss continue playing out.

It is high time for the world to change, and it begins with his finger on the trigger. Tearing his eyes away from Anya, he decides that just this once, he will be his father’s son, and he _will_ finish what his father started.

 

V.

_Find a way…_

To unlock a past. To throw away the thought of a future with the one he wants. To give up hope and accept that some endings are not happy. To make his father proud.

Four objectives. Four dilemmas. But for now, there is nothing the four can do. So, they sit and watch _Swan Lake_ and try not to look shaken with the curtain falls and Act One ends. 

_Painted wings, silver snow, whirling like a ballet._


End file.
